19 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
How Culture Influences Scientific Metaphors
If you believe the cosmos is made up of
omelette, you build instruments specifically designed to find traces
of intergalactic yolk. In that paradigm you reject phenomena like
pulsars and black holes as paranormal garbage. In an omelette
cosmos, the beginning of the universe becomes a chicken and egg
problem, doesn’t it?
Now, this definition of terms (like omelette universe) happens
all the time. The reason that we today refer to electricity in terms
of current is because in the eighteenth ...
2 Electricity has a current because Franklin thought it flowed like water, mal-aria is named after "bad air" because people thought it was caused by that, and we define the Universe it terms of clockwork or information depending on the cultural innovations of the time.
09 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
The Promise of GM Foods
TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO, humans learned how to farm. It was an epochal invention that made possible settled life, cities, craft specialization, writing, organized religion, architecture, mathematics. science. Now humanity stands on the brink of a second agricultural revolution potentially as great as the one that occurred when our ancestors gave up hunter-gatherer way of life and settled down as farmers. Scientists and engineers are poised to genetically modify organisms to increase the yield,... 1 
notes
notesGM foods hold the possibility of a second green revolution, allowing us to use less pesticides and less fertilizer and improve the nutritional value of our food supply.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Herbal Remedies from Tribes Still Involve Science
Quinine comes from an infusion of the bark of a particular tree from the Amazon rain forest. How did pre-modern people ever discover that a tea made from this tree, of all the plants in the forest, would relieve the symptoms of malaria? They must have tried every tree and every plant - roots, stems, bark, leaves - tried chewing on them, mashing them up, making an infusion. This constitutes a massive set of scientific experiments continuing over generations, experiments that moreover could not...Folksonomies: scientific method folk medicine
Folksonomies: scientific method folk medicine
1 notes
notesThe experimental method was there, even if they did not know they were using it.
03 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The Immune System VS Viruses
The immune system consists of white blood cells that come in about 10 million different types. Each type has a protein lock on it called an "antibody," which corresponds to a key carried by a bacterium called an "antigen." If a key enters that lock, the white cell starts multiplying ferociously in order to produce an army of white cells to gobble up the key-carrying invader, be it a flu virus, a tuberculosis bacterium, or even the cells of a transplanted heart. But the body has a problem. It ...An excellent description of the battle going on inside our bodies.
